Clark Strand

CASE #7: The Rain of the Law

In TheLotus Sutra, Shakyamuni proclaims:

I appear in the worldLike a vast cloudShowering its rain without discriminationUpon all withered sentient beings.

BACKGROUND:The Lotus Sutra is among the most revered of all Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, alluded to in countless paintings and statues, and evoked constantly in the spiritual and secular literature of East Asia. Composed around the beginning of the Common Era, the best-known version is the Chinese text translated by Kumarajiva in 406.

The “Rain of the Law” chapter was familiar to American Transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, who published Henry David Thoreau’s translation of it in his magazine The Dial in 1844.

COMMENTARY:Shakyamuni compares himself to a cloud that covers the Earth, moistening the roots of every green plant. But is that really necessary? Even with no Buddha, the world has its plants and clouds.

The Tathagata’s teachings add nothing to what is already there. That is their purpose: To add nothing to a world in which countless beings are always being saved.

VERSE: ShakyamuniCompared himself to a cloudBut no one got it—He wore out all ten fingersPointing where no one would look

"I appear in the worldLike a vast cloudShowering its rain without discriminationUpon all withered sentient beings."

I take it to mean that buddhas appear in our midst in response to our thirst for enlightenment. Rain symbolizing a buddha's compassion for our delusions as we traverse the eternal cycle of birth, aging, illness and death.

"Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world."- Jorge Luis Borges, "The Theologians"